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Advice on going to a wedding

ParentingAutism

We have been invited to my cousin's wedding in May (I believe) but I was hoping you could share what helps you or your child to cope better. 

My daughter has already had many panic-attack-like meltdowns at just the thought of it. It is just over a 4 hour drive with no traffic but we are leaving on a Friday and coming home on the Sunday since the wedding on the Saturday. We've also booked the place we are staying just a 10 minute walk from the wedding so if she gets overwhelmed it's a quick walk back. 

We have shared the menu with her so she can choose what she would like. We have planned to take melatonin with us so she can hopefully sleep better. We have not yet, but we plan to, show her photos of where we are staying, the people getting married and the family (since we haven't seen them since our kids were tiny), and anything else she wants to know. 

We honestly have no clue how she will cope, specifically sensory-wise. I have also told her that we need to buy dresses to wear which she point blank refused (which i expected) so we have agreed she can wear something more like a suit but buying things is just so stressful because she hates the feelings of most clothing and you never really know what it's going to be like when buying from online. 

So, if you have been to a wedding, please can you share what helped you cope better, if you are comfortable with that. I just want her to be as stress-free as possible.  

  • Definitely let her wear whatever she wants to wear - it doesn’t matter what other people think - if it helps her that’s the main thing. It’s just clothes after all. All the preparation you’re doing in terms of giving her lots of information and photos etc is great. One thing we find very important is having the ability to get out of a situation if we feel we need to - for example can she sit at the back near the door so she can quietly leave the room if she needs a break? 

  • We brought snacks, a favourite toy, and noise-cancelling headphones. We also took breaks outside when it got too much and sat near an exit so we could leave easily if needed.

  • ParentingAutism said:
    if you have been to a wedding, please can you share what helped you cope better, if you are comfortable with that. I just want her to be as stress-free as possible.  

    I'll just share my more recent experiences from adulthood, for whatever they might be worth.

    • Before my diagnosis - but after I'd realised I was likely autistic,  and after I'd learned about some of the impacts that it has on me - I gave myself the licence to opt out of attending two family weddings (a nephew and niece, respectively). Everyone was very understanding, and I wouldn't hesitate to do the same again.
    • Given the chance, I'd also have avoided the wedding prior to that (when I didn't yet know I was autistic). However, we'd reluctantly decided to briefly stop in at belated engagement drinks in a pub, only to find - to my dismay - that it was a "surprise" wedding. It was freezing cold outside, so the best I could do was to cadge earplugs from the kindly bouncers.

    • At the wedding prior to that, I spent most of the evening (focused on the meal, drinks, music, dancing, socialising, etc) outside, marking time by wandering around or playing a game on my phone, feeling like a spare part, until we could leave for our hotel.

    The recurring theme is that I don't like them, find them difficult to cope with, and would rather not go at all.

    By sharing this, I absolutely don't mean to be judgemental, critical, or to question your parenting decisions in any way at all. I don't have experience of bringing up an autistic child, and, during the time that I had a step child, I did a terrible job - largely due to my autism, I believe. So, of all people, I don't consider myself to be remotely qualified to advise you on that front. You know your daughter best, so I wish you all the best with whatever you decide to do / whatever mitigation measures you take.

    I'm just saying that, for me, "as stress-free as possible" would mean staying at home where I feel safe, and doing what I usually do.

    There seem to quite a few articles, blogs, etc online that cover this topic, so you might find some useful ideas there. Here are a couple of examples that I dug up:

    Autistic children and weddings

    Taking our autistic kids to a wedding